Favorite poems

There are times when a poem is just what the doctor ordered. There is something about a particular turn of phrase or metaphor that such is perfect and true. My taste is pretty eclectic: I love John Donne and Erica Jong. Edna St. Vincent Millay and Howard Nemerov. Frank Stewart and Racine. The one I would like read at my funeral is "Tattered Kaddish," by Adrienne Rich.

In my younger days I wrote poetry, some terrible some not so bad. Like many writers I kept trying new forms, always returning to the novel form. (and, it always took me back). One of my favorites is about champagne bubbles, another about true confessions.

As noted several weeks ago, I have been working on updating my memoir. Since my most recent concussion I have put that on the shelf until I am better and in the meantime am working on organizing my apartment better. When i find "primary sources" such as notes, journals and so on for a particular era, I put them aside so that when I return to the memoir I can consult the items.

Much as it pains me to admit it, one song which truly resonates with me since last year is the Celine Dion epic "It's All Coming Back to Me Now." (I had hoped that the Meatloaf version would be better but I was sadly disappointed). There is a line which reads "I banished every memory you and I had ever made," which I realized quite describes my awful habit/compulsion of blocking out from memory traumatic events and/or romantic debacles, and not only do I tend to do that, but I also keep mementos of certain people in literal boxes separate from everything else. There are certain people in one's life who, when you see their handwriting, it almost like feeling their breath on your neck, so you have to be cautious about opening such boxes.



So it was with some dismay that when I was sorting a box of mementos I came across something which properly belonged in a very particular box, one which should be sealed with industrial strength duct tape if not guarded by lasers. When I read the following I was disoriented, because it was so familiar that I thought one of my own poems was written on the paper, and then because the phrases were such a part of my daily internal emotional lexicon that I had long forgotten they originated elsewhere. I won't name the author- suffice to say that it is someone who very much made me who I am more than anyone else who isn't me.



And now you are gone.
My heart is torn
I stumble, I fall
I cry out from my sorrow
Is this the end of it all?
Stop, wait, don' t leave me
Can't you remember the time
When we were like a song?
Have you forgotten the rhyme?
I cry out in the darkness
It is all too clear to me
I just want you to know
You are still very dear to me.
What happened to our waterfall?
Real love never ends
I don't want it all
Please, maybe, how about friends?
I cry out from the pain
Won't you ever come back?
Our rainbows are fading
Now I only see black.
and now you are gone.